Reference is made to commonly assigned co-pending patent applications Docket No. F-633 filed herewith entitled xe2x80x9cMETHOD FOR FIELD PROGRAMMING RADIO FREQUENCY IDENTIFICATION DEVICES THAT CONTROL REMOTE CONTROL DEVICESxe2x80x9d in the names of Jeffrey D. Pierce, Brian M. Romansky, Thomas J. Foth, and Anand V. Chhatpar; Docket No. F-635 filed herewith entitled xe2x80x9cMETHOD FOR FIELD PROGRAMMABLE RADIO FREQUENCY IDENTIFICATION TESTING DEVICES FOR TRANSMITTING USER SELECTED DATAxe2x80x9d in the names of Thomas J. Foth, Brian M. Romansky, Jeffrey D. Pierce, Andrei Obrea, and Anand V. Chhatpar; Docket No. F-637 filed herewith entitled xe2x80x9cMETHOD FOR FIELD PROGRAMMABLE RADIO FREQUENCY IDENTIFICATION DEVICES TO PERFORM SWITCHING FUNCTIONSxe2x80x9d in the names of Andrei Obrea, Brian Romansky, Thomas J. Foth, Jeffrey D. Pierce, and Anand V. Chhatpar; Docket No. F-638 filed herewith entitled xe2x80x9cMETHOD FOR FIELD PROGRAMMING RADIO FREQUENCY IDENTIFICATION LABELSxe2x80x9d in the names of Thomas J. Foth, Brian M. Romansky, Jeffrey D. Pierce, and Anand V. Chhatpar; Docket No. F-639 filed herewith entitled xe2x80x9cMETHOD FOR FIELD PROGRAMMING RADIO FREQUENCY IDENTIFICATION RETURN FORMSxe2x80x9d in the names of Jeffrey D. Pierce, Thomas J. Foth, Brian M. Romansky, Andrei Obrea, and Anand V. Chhatpar; and F-640 filed herewith entitled xe2x80x9cMETHOD AND APPARATUS FOR FIELD PROGRAMMING RADIO FREQUENCY IDENTIFICATION DEVICESxe2x80x9d in the names of Brian M. Romansky, Thomas J. Foth, Jeffrey D. Pierce, Andrei Obrea and Anand V. Chhatpar.
This invention pertains to electronic circuits and, more particularly, to programmable radio frequency document identification devices.
RFID tags and RFID systems have been used for employee personal identification in automated gate sentry applications protecting secured buildings or areas and in document identification systems that contain RFID tags that are affixed to the document. The user of an RFID tag contained in a personal identification badge or the holder of a document containing a RFID tag would place the RFID tag near a device that transmits an excitation signal to the RFID tag in a manner that the RFID tag would communicate the information stored in the RFID tag back to the device.
One of the problems with the above was that the manufacturer of the tags programmed the information stored in the RFID tags. Thus, the manufacture of the tags would know confidential information regarding the party wanting to protect secured buildings, secured areas and/or documents.
One method utilized by the prior art that avoided giving the RFID manufacturer the party""s confidential information involved establishing a database that was related to the information stored in the RFID tags. For instance, if the number 1000 was stored in a RFID tag the number 1000 may represent the employee John Doe in the related database.
The prior art attempted to solve the foregoing problem by providing RFID writers to parties that are protecting several buildings, several areas and/or secured documents. RFID writers are expensive.
This invention overcomes the disadvantages of the prior art by providing a method that allows one to mark information with a pencil or conductive ink on a material equipped with a RFID type circuit, and have the marked information transmitted by the RFID circuit. The material may be any cellulose type product, i.e., paper, cardboard, chipboard, wood or plastic, fabric, animal hide, etc. The marked entered information may be corrected by erasing the written information with a pencil eraser and writing new information on paper with a pencil. Information may also be marked into a RFID circuit and have the marked information transmitted by the RFID circuit by utilizing a standard ink jet computer printer to print lines on paper equipped with a RFID type circuit, by having the printed lines perform the function of wires. The aforementioned printed information may be modified by having an individual connect different printed wires by drawing a penciled line between the wires.
This invention accomplishes the foregoing by utilizing the RFID serial number generation portion of the RFID circuit that is used when the RFID circuit is being read. In the prior art, the bits used to encode one""s and zero""s into the generation portion of the RFID circuit were typically fixed. This invention utilizes the serial number generation portion of the RFID circuit by exposing on a piece of paper some or all of the bits left open or closed to represent a binary values, i.e., ones or zeros. A user may complete the RFID serial number storage portion of the RFID circuit by filling in the space between the connections with a pencil to alter the binary values. Alternatively, the serial number generation portion of the RFID circuit may be exposed on a piece of paper with all of the connections made, and a user may break a space between the connections with a sharp instrument or hole punch to alter the binary values. Alternatively, the serial number generation portion of the RFID circuit may have some of the bits all ready left open or closed to represent a unique number.
An additional advantage of this invention is that a party will be able to program their own RFID employee personal identification devices and their own RFID document identification devices.